grafix04

In my case, my Fotolia earnings drop began before I joined DP. In fact, the reason I joined DP and PhotoDune was, in part, to compensate for the large earnings drop at Fotolia.

That's interesting, Lisa. Do you think it could be purely based on pricing? It's a real shame if it is because that's half the incentive of reaching emerald.

I can't work out why my earnings went up. It doesn't make any sense at all, does it? I joined FT later than most of you but two years ago things were booming. Then came the two drops in commissions and things started to fall and the drop continued. Then suddenly a few months ago it just picked up for no reason at all. No new uploads, no moving up any levels, although I'm close now. I hardly even looked at the site. It's weird.

Who had the 'same' earnings fall? Gostwyck? Did his earnings drop significantly like the others or just a bit? Who are the other emeralds and above that have seen a dramatic fall but aren't on DP? I don't think Fotorob's on DP and he's doing very well. I left DP and have had a big increase in earnings and haven't uploaded for about a year. That can't be a coincidence. They were next on my list to drop but after the rise, they're now on my 'lets wait and see' list.

My earnings at FT have been slowly declining for a couple of years, same as they have at IS, and in direct contrast to SS where they have been rising over the same period. If you looked at my data graph you wouldn't be able to tell at what point I made Emerald on FT. It basically made no difference at all. It's my view that the overall microstock market has now plateaued, from the early explosive growth, and some agencies are simply more successful than others at retaining and growing their share of the market.

Fotorob has a huge portfolio on FT, almost half of which has been uploaded in the last year. With FT's sort-order being so heavily weighted in favour of images uploaded within the last year, I'm not at all surprised that Fotorob is reporting strong growth. In the last year he's uploaded almost as many new images as I have since 2006. Good effort but, the way things stand, he'll probably need to keep up that incredible output of 3500 new images/year to maintain his earnings. When he turns up here saying "Well I'm Emerald and my earnings are growing" you have to scratch below the surface to find the true story.

If FT were next on your 'to drop list' it suggests to me that your portfolio/earnings there might not be large enough to be statistically meaningful. I doubt that you'd have been thinking of dropping them if they were generating several hundred or thousand $'s per month.

I think Emeralds are generally suffering more than lower-ranked contributors but only because they tend to have the older portfolios, that contained many best-selling images, that nowadays rarely get seen.

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grafix04

Who had the 'same' earnings fall? Gostwyck? Did his earnings drop significantly like the others or just a bit? Who are the other emeralds and above that have seen a dramatic fall but aren't on DP? I don't think Fotorob's on DP and he's doing very well. I left DP and have had a big increase in earnings and haven't uploaded for about a year. That can't be a coincidence. They were next on my list to drop but after the rise, they're now on my 'lets wait and see' list.

My earnings at FT have been slowly declining for a couple of years, same as they have at IS, and in direct contrast to SS where they have been rising over the same period. If you looked at my data graph you wouldn't be able to tell at what point I made Emerald on FT. It basically made no difference at all. It's my view that the overall microstock market has now plateaued, from the early explosive growth, and some agencies are simply more successful than others at retaining and growing their share of the market.

Fotorob has a huge portfolio on FT, almost half of which has been uploaded in the last year. With FT's sort-order being so heavily weighted in favour of images uploaded within the last year, I'm not at all surprised that Fotorob is reporting strong growth. In the last year he's uploaded almost as many new images as I have since 2006. Good effort but, the way things stand, he'll probably need to keep up that incredible output of 3500 new images/year to maintain his earnings. When he turns up here saying "Well I'm Emerald and my earnings are growing" you have to scratch below the surface to find the true story.

If FT were next on your 'to drop list' it suggests to me that your portfolio/earnings there might not be large enough to be statistically meaningful. I doubt that you'd have been thinking of dropping them if they were generating several hundred or thousand $'s per month.

I think Emeralds are generally suffering more than lower-ranked contributors but only because they tend to have the older portfolios, that contained many best-selling images, that nowadays rarely get seen.

Actually they were on my 'to drop list' just like all of the microstock sites are. I'm slowly replacing my RF income with RM and other things, including selling more on my own. That's what I've been doing all year. One by one they're dropping like flies and I haven't lost anything. Fotolia was next on the list for a few reasons. They became one of the cheapest with the lowest commissions and dropped our royalties twice in a year. I just didn't like them after that. But as I said before, two years ago they were doing really well for me. I joined them late in the game but even with half of my portfolio, I was earning double the income I was at DT and they were my second best earner - even managed to be the top earner at one stage. But then they started to fall significantly and leaving them became inevitable.

Now this sudden increase. I can't make any sense of it. I've not shown any interest in the site in about a year. Can you explain it to me? I'm not too sure how I even feel about the increase. I was looking forward to dumping them and now I'm leaving them there a bit longer just to see what's going on. If I was to get the same income I was getting two years ago, I may stay on but then all you guys are experiencing the opposite so I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. Should I stay on and work towards emerald or will I reach it and be shafted like you guys seems to be?

In my case, my Fotolia earnings drop began before I joined DP. In fact, the reason I joined DP and PhotoDune was, in part, to compensate for the large earnings drop at Fotolia.

Same here. I started to upload to a dozen new sites that I had never bothered with before AFTER the big drop at Fotolia. Between all of them I haven't managed to recuperate anything like what I was making from only the top 4 before.

« Last Edit: December 18, 2012, 09:10 by fotografer »

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lisafx

Fotorob has a huge portfolio on FT, almost half of which has been uploaded in the last year. With FT's sort-order being so heavily weighted in favour of images uploaded within the last year, I'm not at all surprised that Fotorob is reporting strong growth. In the last year he's uploaded almost as many new images as I have since 2006. Good effort but, the way things stand, he'll probably need to keep up that incredible output of 3500 new images/year to maintain his earnings. When he turns up here saying "Well I'm Emerald and my earnings are growing" you have to scratch below the surface to find the true story.

(snip)

I think Emeralds are generally suffering more than lower-ranked contributors but only because they tend to have the older portfolios, that contained many best-selling images, that nowadays rarely get seen.

Gostwyck may have hit on the magic formula here. I don't know for sure, but I can verify that my newer stuff does sell at a much higher rate than my portfolio overall.